I'm drawing 100 items with colored pencils and it's already taken me three weeks.
Why? Because we've just passed 100,000
subscribers and I decided this would be a great way to celebrate.
I think I underestimated how long this would take.
So I've been drawing this for a few hours now out and I just realized
that I would much prefer to do this in portrait instead of landscape.
So I'm going to start over.
But I'm not doing this alone.
My subscribers have sent in their
suggestions of what they think represents my channel, and should be included in this
piece to make up 100 total items for our 100,000 milestone.
I feel like there are some fairly obvious places to start.
I painted this right back at the start
of my YouTube channel, with the paint pens that Life of Color gave me.
It's still one of my favorite items
in this whole studio and has been with my family since I was a kid.
My Melting Clock Here was another popular
suggestion and I frequently get asked where I bought it.
I actually went on Italy on a student exchange program when I was 14 years old.
Yeah, my parents are maybe a little bit crazy. But I found this clock in a small
shop in Venice while I was there and... I didn't buy it.
It was quite expensive and I was just a kid.
Instead, I came home with a bunch
of pointless souvenirs and postcard books and thought about this clock for the next
five years, wishing I had just spent the money and bought it.
As an adult, I had the opportunity to revisit Italy on a holiday
with my family and I didn't want to let the opportunity slip by again.
So I walked every little street in Venice
until I found the same little shop and finally bought myself this special clock.
So no, you can't buy this on Amazon.
Can I take a moment here to talk about this paper?
I wasn't sure about using this paper for this.
It was actually sent to me by Derwent
to try and feels completely different to any other paper I've used.
I can't really describe it,
it's almost like... Buttery and at first I didn't like it at all.
But after a little more drawing with my pencils, I found that it created
a beautiful, paint like finish without any white gaps and made the Polychromos
pencils much easier to blend than normal paper.
So I decided to use this instead
of the fancy 100% cotton Bristol that was my original choice for this project,
although I have found one downside, but I'll get to that later.
But now it is time for the real star of the show, Moscow.
Yes, everybody wanted Moscow included, and I'm no expert at drawing furs so
he's looking a little older in pencil than
in real life, but he's still a handsome cat.
While I'd love to share the story of every
item I'm drawing, I've got 100 items to draw,
and we don't have 100 minutes to go through in this video.
But if you subscribe to my channel,
you can browse my past videos to take yourself on a treasure hunt and see
exactly how many of these items you can figure out for yourself.
I've already had a few people ask if I'll be selling prints of this artwork,
and for the first time, I'm actually considering it.
So let me know in the comments if that's something that you'd be interested in too.
When I started selling coloring books,
I only ever sold digital and printable versions for ages because I didn't have
a clue where to start when it came to shipping and managing the orders.
But now we've been making our own stickers
and the Coloring Planner, and in Australia, we've been using Sendle
for most of our orders, and Sendle are sponsoring today's video.
Sendle has kept us sane during the busy seasons of our business.
Instead of pushing a trolley full
of packages down to the post office and waiting in line for half an hour,
Sendle picks up your packages direct from your house or business.
The website connects to Shopify,
WooCommerce and other sites to bring in the orders automatically.
So all you need to do is book online, then print and attach the label.
It's so easy, even our cat can do it.
Overall, it has saved us time,
effort and money that we'd much rather spend on more art supplies.
Sendle believes that every delivery
should have a positive impact on the planet and are 100% carbon neutral.
They offset the carbon emissions caused by packaging deliveries and invest
in projects like forest conservation around the world.
And if you set up a free Sendle account
with the link in the description, you'll get five free sends.
Do we get five free sends?
No, but along with our viewers, you can get a free consultation with one
of their shipping specialists by sending an email here with the subject line SRC.
Head to the link in the description below
to sign up for your free account, and let's get back to our artwork!
If there was a highlight of the past year
for me, it was probably visiting Jazza's Studios.
Now, you did mentioned you had
a sharpener, but I actually have some better options for you.
I thought I'd bring some of my own.
It's got dry ice!
What is this?
Plenty of you agreed that we needed to somehow include a tribute to my collab
with Jazza, but I wasn't going to do another portrait.
I know my limits.
So instead I'm drawing Thor's Ragnarok
sword, like the sword in the portrait I drew for Jazza.
& if you haven't seen that video yet, it's definitely a must watch on my channel.
Behind our sword, I'm drawing a rainbow because we have a strange rainbow
that appears daily in our studio for about six months of the year.
It has caused quite a distraction at times!
But let's jump back to some of your suggestions.
Yolanda has requested a light bulb for all of the ideas on this channel.
Blue. As you say, it's your favorite color.
You'll know that I actually really love teal.
My favorite color teal.
This is, like almost my favorite color.
It's a bit more teal - of all time, so let's add some teal.
Some of these pieces of art took hours
to draw, and here I am drawing them again, but in miniature.
I don't know how I thought I was ever going to get this all done in two weeks.
Spongebob, hearing more videos than most
people realize. I'm at the halfway point, and so far I've spent at least 30 hours
drawing, and I'm quickly running out of time to get this done in time for us
to release this video after we've already bumped it twice in our schedule.
There was a great suggestion from Becca that I wanted to include in this drawing,
so I've decided to draw a tree to represent growth.
Not just the growth of my channel, but the growth in my own confidence
in learning from my mistakes and the growth that I've seen so many
of you experience as we go on this creative journey together.
And this next one is for my son, Zach.
He's not interested in watching my videos
anymore, but there's one video that he asks to watch over and over,
while actually, to clarify the end of one video that he asks to watch over and over.
And he is constantly asking me if we can
turn a Rubik's Cube into Skittles again so that he can eat them.
There's a lot left to go, and I've been working on this for a few
weeks now, but I am really happy with how this is turning out.
Oh, no, Shane.
What?
So I've noticed that some of the pencil pigment is wearing down on the paper.
The colors are looking faded, and I can see the white texture underneath.
I've been so careful not to rub my hand along the work as I go.
That's why I've had this tracing paper
covering everything I've done, so I'm not sure if this is normal or if
this is an issue specific to this type of paper, but I'm going to have to color
over a bunch of these areas again when I'm done.
At least nothing is smudged.
It's just... it just needs a touch up at the end. It's okay.
Hey, Shane, is the play button actually arrived here?
No, but I think it's supposed to come today.
It wouldn't be a true summary of our year on YouTube without at least one camera.
We mostly use Blackmagic Design equipment
now, and we've been testing their timelapse settings so we can film all
of this at a faster speed without taking up the space of our entire computer
with the 50 or so hours this video has taken so far. It feels like we're finally
getting close to the end here, although realistically,
this is still a few days work, but I've decided to stop coloring
and finish sketching these last objects with more detail.
I haven't had a single hand cramp in this
whole process, which is because I've been careful to rest my hands and watch
my pressure, but also because these pencils are high quality and easy to use.
But it turns out my hands weren't the only
thing I should have been thinking about for a long project like this.
So it is currently 3:20am in the morning and apparently I am not going to be
sleeping tonight because my neck is in so much pain all of a sudden
that I completely
neglected my posture and I've probably been humped over my desk really badly.
I'm just waiting for the Panadol to kick in and hoping I can at least get back
to sleep and deal with this properly tomorrow.
The next 24 hours were hard, so I didn't do much drawing.
Instead, I took the time off to give
my neck some relief, and luckily the next day I was back and feeling much better.
This is definitely the most ambitious colored pencil project I have ever done,
and I am really making use of this new set of pencils in the process.
We've got 30 items left to draw,
and there are a few things that I definitely can't miss out.
The Marvel hat that I tracked down online
to match ADC Art Attack during our crazy collab on the Thomas Kincade poster book.
I got it. Paper, paint, pens, pencil sharpeners.
And let's not forget, a tribute to Toy Story. Darth Vader was
a common request from our subscribers, specifically Lego Darth Vader.
He featured in a recent Star Wars Kids
coloring book episode that was one of my favorites and surprisingly challenging.
And this Compass is not something I would have thought to include,
but quite a few people requested it because this was the tutorial that so many
people have used to learn shading and lighting,
so here it is. Paint brushes are an appropriate addition,
although I've only been using cheap brushes until now.
But this picture I'm using is
of Chloe Rose's own brushes that she sells through Artistic Bear Co.
I'll have some in my hand soon so that I can learn how to paint properly this year.
And yes, even the blender makes it into our artwork today.
A puzzle piece for my love of puzzles.
A coloring book because, well, do I really have to explain that one?
Some distress ink pads, markers and washi tape.
And just for Paranoia Princess, a piece of cheese to represent my cheesy jokes.
That brings us to 100 items.
And yet - you'll notice I'm not done because
this drawing has taken me so long that we've gained another 10,000 subscribers.
So as my tribute to our new followers, I've decided to add ten more items.
And to make this just perfect,
I've currently used exactly 109 pencils from this set.
So if I use just one more color, that's 110 items with 110 pencils.
I wonder if I spent 110 hours on this yet.
It feels like it.
I don't even know anymore.
I wanted to include a cancer ribbon in honor of my mum.
She passed away a few years ago and was my biggest supporter with my art.
She even learned to color and took
my books into her chemotherapy appointments to try and help me out.
We will always miss her.
This switchboard is something you don't see in my videos.
Along with the man behind it, Shane does so much behind the scenes
to bring these videos to life and his work on our live streams is amazing.
I will definitely drag him on screen for a future video.
Here's some Vegemite for everyone who wanted something Australian.
Frankly, this is easier to draw than a Kangaroo.
And it's time to include our 100,000
subscriber play button from YouTube that is due to arrive any day now.
It actually just arrived while you've been filming.
Oh, really? Yes.
Stop everything! Exciting.
Should I be nervous? I'm not supposed to be nervous.
I'm just excited, I think.
Woah Okay.
It's very real when it's just there.
Wow.
Here it is.
It's a pretty exciting milestone right there.
And what perfect timing.
This was not staged.
Guys, this has arrived mid filming this video.
What do we think?
It's time for the finishing touches.
I've fixed up those areas where the pencil
was rubbing off on the paper and I've finally done the color catalog that I was
admittedly procrastinating a bit from the start and I've put all
the pencils in the Faber Castell Polychromos box.
110 items with 110 pencils and 110 hours?
More like 60 - close enough. To celebrate
110,000 subscribers!
This is definitely the most ambitious colored pencil project that I have ever
done and it took everything in me, but I'm really happy with the end result.
I always like to stretch myself and take on ambitious projects and when it works
out, the results are exciting and wonderful like this.
But taking big risks does mean accepting that things don't always work out.
And it's taken a lot of failures along
the way for me to get to a point where something like this was even possible.
If you want to see how I've grown and how
I've worked through mistakes, here's another video where I took
on a huge project and things didn't go to plan...